Date:         Tue, 17 Oct 1995 21:27:15 -0400 (EDT)
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         Mark Janello <mjanello@umich.edu>
Subject:      Re: Heat: A New Approach?

On Tue, 17 Oct 1995 EF0JPB1@mvs.cso.niu.edu wrote:

> The heat threads have come and gone and come and gone and
> frozen and thawed.  Apparently there are four schools of
> thought on the subject that are easily discernable.  All of
> these address heat only when the bus/van is moving (i.e. not
> stationary camping which is a different matter).  The four
> approaches are:
> 
> 1)  Just freeze, don't expect air-cooled heat.
> 
> 2)  Keep your heater boxes in tip-top shape and all your
> tubes together and the insulation around them secure and you
> will get enough heat to do what VW originally claimed "keep
> the chill off"
> 
> 3)  Add a gas-fired heater or keep the one you have.
> 
> 4)  For spot heat only, add one of the radiant/ceramic
> heaters as long as your electrical system is up to it.
> 
Well, there is the possibility of using the stock heater
boxes but adding some kind of recirculating system to "reuse"
the interior air instead of constantly forcing in new air.  
There are kits to do this (I've seen ads in the VW rags) and
people have noticed that the fans used in these kits are
available at much lower cost in marine stores (I think
"in line bilge fan" rings a bell).  Bob Hoover has a 
sermon on this topic; according to at least one correspondent
of his from Norway, the system works.

I'm thinking about this for my '62, and would like comments
from anyone else about what they think. . . . .

Mark
'62 Kombi in cold cold cold Michigan